Lilac Solutions

Lilac Solutions is an Oakland, California-based cleantech company pioneering ion exchange (IX) technology for direct lithium extraction (DLE) from brine resources. Unlike conventional evaporation pond methods that require vast land and water in remote salt flat locations, or incumbent aluminum adsorbents that struggle with low-concentration and impurity-heavy brines, Lilac's proprietary IX materials and engineered flowsheets can economically recover lithium from virtually any brine type - including geothermal, oilfield, salar, and surface lake brines - using 10x less freshwater, zero evaporation ponds, and modular, off-the-shelf equipment. After nearly a decade of R&D, the company has now deployed its technology through five successive generations at demonstration and pilot scale on three continents, achieving 80%+ recovery rates while rejecting 99.9% of impurities.

Lilac's flagship domestic project is at the Great Salt Lake in Utah, which holds an enormous lithium resource at ~70 mg/L concentration - a grade 30x lower than Chile's Atacama. Lilac's Gen 5 IX technology can economically extract lithium from this brine without disturbing the lake's water balance, returning all water after lithium removal. The company completed a successful field pilot at the Great Salt Lake in 2025 and is now advancing toward first commercial production targeted for 2027, with an ultimate capacity of 20,000 tonnes per year of lithium carbonate. Supporting this is an IX bead manufacturing facility in Fernley, Nevada, creating the beginnings of a vertically integrated domestic lithium supply chain. In January 2026, Lilac signed a binding 10-year offtake agreement with commodity trader Traxys for the Great Salt Lake output, and in June 2026 selected Hatch as its EPCM partner for the commercial facility.

Lilac Solutions is a critical enabler for the US energy supply chain transition. Lithium is an essential input to EV batteries and grid storage, and the US currently relies heavily on foreign - predominantly South American and Chinese - supply chains. By unlocking domestic brine sources (Great Salt Lake, oilfield brines, geothermal fields) with technology that is environmentally compatible and scalable, Lilac directly addresses the structural lithium supply deficit projected to exceed 900,000 tonnes LCE/year by 2035. The company has attracted backing from the Department of Energy and major institutional investors, and has been recognized by TIME and Fast Company as among the most innovative green energy companies in the world.